Dana Carvey & Freddie Prinze Jr. – First Impressions

By starrymag | May 9, 2016

Q) For both of you what about this show made it the right opportunity to come back to television?

 

Dana Carvey:  Well the way I look at it, well first of all it was kind of unique because I – people for a few years have said hey they should do an impression as a competition show. And I said yes, okay but I didn’t think it could be like a six month long thing, like a singing show. And then USA and David Garfinkle – it was actually Art Garfunkel who approached me initially. (laughs) They came up with this idea and USA said here six on the air, half hour, shoot it over three days. So it seemed like a fun project to work on. I love watching people do impressions and we had some amazing talent- so I got to be an audience a lot of the time too.

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  Dana you’re ridiculous. For me, this kind of came out of left field and I’m very much – I’m actively trying to be retired. And when this came up it was like hey you’re going to basically be in a comedy club with Dana Carvey hanging out with comedians and impressionists who are seeing who the funniest one is that night. And as a little boy Budd Friedman used to parade me around the improv when I was 11-years-old past midnight and I would get to watch like all these old school comedians do their thing. I clearly have a soft spot for comedians but this was very much sort of hey do you want to be 12-years-old again and that was an easy, “yes.” So that’s literally why I’m doing it.

 

Q) I was wondering, was there an impression that you ever had a lot of trouble – any trouble mastering?

 

Dana Carvey:   Oh yes most of them. I’d say George Bush Sr. was really difficult and I was assigned that when I was on Saturday Night Live and everyone said what are we going to do with him, you know. And I was just kind of going hey if you can’t do an impression, which we joke about on the show, you just say the name, this is George Bush Sr. But basically that one took a year to kind of make something interesting and funny and Obama was also especially difficult because he had the perceptively deep voice, very much down here. And the ones that are kind of cut up like W or Clinton, the ones that are kind of caught up in your throat are just easier to do.

 

Q) What are you looking for in the contestants? How did you select them?

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  I had nothing to do with the selection process.

 

Dana Carvey:  Yes I mean basically it was our first impression…I think that there were six shows, we’re doing three each show, so there’s 18 contestants. There are thousands of different types of impressionists. From a ten-year-old in his room doing stuff on YouTube all here, there, and everywhere. So I think availability and what we had in LA – we just had a nice collage of different styles. We tried to mix it up and we got some really, really talented people, you know.

 

Q) As you were the mentor for the contestants, what skills did you find they needed coaching on the most?

 

Dana Carvey: Well there are different kinds of impressions, Freddie and I talked about. Some impressions are just so eerily accurate and Freddie is the one that said he gets kind of frightened by them. I mean there are scary, like I’ve definitely gotten frighten by Frank Caliendo a couple of times doing Morgan Freeman. Is this sorcery or this should not exist in nature. But I would say that I always – my style is to abstract it a little bit, have fun with it, take it places with the detail. And I think a lot of it is just confidence. And it was kind of sweet because the people on our show were not internationally known. Some of them had different levels of experience and that would be the main thing, is just to enjoy it and just have fun with it and extrapolate it, find little things and, you know, commit. But generally we were all jaw-dropped at times just by some of the writing and also the impression itself. Freddie?

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  Well… I’m sure they’ll cut to angles where you see me in the background with my mouth wide open or I’m on the floor laughing. I mean there’s some of these, I say kids because some of them were literally 19-years-old who came on the show- when you recognize greatness at an early age you go that kid’s got it. That sounds corny but you’ll see a couple of kids on the show where you’re like oh my God, that kid has got it and I can’t wait to see what happens next for him. I mean, like Dana said, there’s jaw-dropping moments. Like I genuinely got uncomfortable quite a few times because it felt like the person was in the room and no longer looks like this. So, I had nothing to do with the coaching of them. All I got to do was sit back and enjoy it.

 

Q) I watched growing up called the Copy Cats, ABC, I don’t know if you remember that or not. Do you remember that?

 

Dana Carvey:  Oh God yes, absolutely, I was glued, I mean in the 60’s between Frank Gorshin and Rich Little. And others, yes I was glued to those guys and I remember that show. That was taking I think it was like four or five well known famous impressionists and kind of having them do a variety show – was it a half hour or an hour?

 

Q)  I think it was an hour actually, yes. But you always reminded me of Fred Travalena in many ways, I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

 

Dana Carvey:    Oh no I knew Fred, I knew him, yes. Well I remember seeing Fred Travalena on television, yes, and Rich Little as far as just pure impressionists.  Yes I would say…and then I think a lot of the sort of what you would call generic voices, I probably got from Jonathan Winters like a lot of people and then later on Carlin and Pryor and Freddie’s dad and I saw them all. I love impressionists, I love magicians too. I mean I love a pure brilliant comedian as well. But I love the watching someone do an impression, especially when I can’t do, it does seem like a magic trick to me. It’s very entertaining, so yes.  That was the hay day of variety man, that there was so much variety shows on the ‘60s all the way through most the ‘70s and pretty much that was it, I don’t know, I mean prime time network variety. But now we have the competition shows like The Voice and stuff, those are kind of the new variety I think. I don’t know, it’s all in my (book).

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  That’s new school variety.

 

Q)  Dana, I was wondering if there were any impressions that you’re most looking forward to fans seeing featured on the show?

 

Dana Carvey:  I mean I feel like if you’re asking me right now who everyone’s doing and it’s just very interesting is Trump. I have been working on a Hillary [Clinton] and I couldn’t really do a Hillary but now I do her because her voice got kind of hoarse so I was able to just kind of find an angle on Hillary. My angle is she has an ear piece and Bill’s behind the scene, “big dog to little hill, big dog to little hill come in little hill. Little hill you’ve got to slow down baby you’ve got to slow down. You can’t empathize everywhere baby, you cannot come on peaches n cream baby, peaches n cream.” And a lot of the younger impressionists they’re doing Seth Rogen and Katt Williams trying to get, you know, they’re doing Sofia Vergara, they’re doing, people that aren’t kind of from my age group basically you know. Some good Mark Wahlberg’s are in there. It’s – there’s the usual suspects but then occasionally someone would do somebody that you don’t really expect. We had a guy who did Sharon Osbourne and did it in a way that was sort of surreal. So I’ll leave that.

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  To piggy back on that, anytime one of the impressionists was literally able to switch sexes and it happened quite a few times, we had girls doing Owen Wilson, we had guys doing Sharon Osbourne and every time that happens it’s unbelievable, it’s magic.

 

Dana Carvey:        I can only do men because of my kind of sort of oversize masculinity so it’s hard for me to do women.

 

Q) Dana, was there anyone who tried to – I was just going to say did anyone try to impress you with their impressions of people like you do? Like the church lady and (Hans and Franz), stuff like that. Did any of the contestants try to impress you with your impersonations?

 

Dana Carvey:        I think they did. Did they Freddie? I mean did somebody maybe…

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  Yes.  Well there was some during that but I think we have an episode where somebody finishes strong with a church lady that kind of threw you back, I think there was one like that.

 

Dana Carvey:  Yes I think everyone’s an impressionist on some level. I really do. I mean I think there are people with crazy gifts and then I think most of us do somebody whether it’s your uncle or school teacher.

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  Shoot Dana I grew up learning them from you.

 

Dana Carvey:  Right and I did stuff from everyone I could. I don’t know if I’m doing church lady, I’m not sure where that rhythm came from or maybe it was from five different influences. I remember once thinking that I said to (Tommy)’s mother I said I think there’s a little bit of your influence in (Garth) even though that character was based on my brother. But there’s that little hesitant nerd character. You never know where it’s all coming from, so it’s interesting. But yes you steal from the best, take everything you can. Robin Williams was a huge influence on me because he was from San Francisco and he was like the godfather of comedy. I tried to be him for five years until I figured out no one was as fast as him. I had a trunk with props and found my own style. But yes absolutely trying to be Robin and I told him that and he says oh I got everything from Jonathan Winters. Because those generic kind of really, classic – you’ve got to be able to do the stoner dude, or you may do any different array of accents those are just sort of touch stones when you were coming up in the ‘80’s you had to do those, so. Anyway, it’s all in my book.

 

Q) Freddie you actually sort of just touched on one of the things I was going to ask you but do you do impressions? And if so who is your best impression?

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  Shoot man most of mine – I’m kind of a dork I like science fiction and was raised on Star Wars. So like 99% of my impressions is Star Wars Universe. And the other ones were literally just being raised on Dana Carvey. So they’re diluted versions of his sick impressions. And I have like one Peter Falk from Kevin Pollak so there’s another diluted version of one But like Dana said he watched Robin, he loved Jonathan Winters, he even mentioned my father, my father did a mean Muhammad Ali. So, you know, all mine are from that. But like I got to make a movie with Peter Falk before he passed away and you have heard that voice that (Pollak) did back in the day and then you hear his like the first thing I wanted to do for Peter as I was such a stupid young actor was like oh, oh let me do my Peter Falk impression which was nearly an identical experience to the one my grandmother had when she met Peter Falk in the ‘70’s with my dad. And my dad literally said now ma, don’t call him Columbo he really doesn’t like that and she goes oh Freddie don’t worry I’m not going to call you nothing, everything is going to be fine, I’ll stay calm. And as soon as my dad brought her to meet Peter Falk she literally goes Columbo I love you and my dad goes ma what did I tell you? And she looks at him she goes I can’t take a chance with his last name with my – I can’t say the word she said with my bleeping accent. And so that’s why she called him Columbo. But everybody steals their voices from somewhere so like my old lady voice, my grandma (Maria). That’s just no matter what voice I try to do I can’t do an American old woman, it’s always going to sound like a New York Puerto Rican, that’s just the way that it goes.

 

Q) Dana you obviously came up in the clubs and now you’re doing this show. How about a comedy club – how has things changed over the years in the different clubs? And what is it like now to be sort of teaching the people rather than learning.

 

Dana Carvey:  Everyone’s lives – they’re real, it’s just a passage of time but, my sons are both doing standup and they’re beginners and the club system is just very different now. And they’re looking for someone with some, you know, social media followers. But then they try and they get a following and they want to put them in the club with headlines. That usually takes a long time –10,000 hours. If you can do it in three years – like Freddie’s dad was he was pretty stout really fast I mean like within a year I think, right Freddie? Or two years. He was…

 

Dana Carvey: Yes so there are things like that but most of us it takes ten years I think of hard work just stating the obvious the nature of television with the live streaming and all the channels and all there’s just – there’s a lot of shows that can exist now. I think it’s a golden age and it’s just fun that USA wanted to do this little show. We don’t – we’re not trying to be The Voice or American Idol even though there’s a competitive element. It’s kind of a celebration really, it’s a fun little party. I mean if it evolves you would want it to be like a night club, you know, in the sense of Hugh Hefner or something. You know, we tried to make it as casual as we could and not dress it up too much, you know. So there’s nothing not fun about it really. I got to hang out with my friends, too.

 

Q)  I wanted to ask you about the fact that this show is going to be the first time a lot of these people get discovered and do you have any advice for them for what’s coming next as they launch their careers in show business?

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  You have seniority you get to answer that one. Ah you have seniority, you get to answer that one.

 

Dana Carvey:   Oh golly, I, you know, oh man. Geez there’s so much there. I would just say the only thing you can – well don’t let the wealth effect get a hold of you, just work on you being better. I mean I don’t think in show business if you go into it with the goal to be rich and famous I don’t know I think that’s kind of a trap and maybe for some of you it’s fun. I would just say try to get better, try to work on your thing. And don’t take it too seriously, or take the work seriously, because it goes up and down.

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  That’s yes I think that’s the most important one Dana just said is don’t take it serious – don’t take yourself seriously, take the job seriously and I would say don’t be afraid to fail. If you’re – like I was lucky enough – Dana worked on it for years, I was lucky enough to have hosted it once with Saturday Night Live and if you care too much you’re just going to suck bad. So you have to have this willingness to fall flat on your face and when you do have that willingness to fall down you never do. It’s when you’re trying to watch your footing is when you slip and fall on your ass. So be fearless, don’t be afraid to fail, don’t take yourself seriously but take your profession hyper-seriously. That’s what I would say. I like piggy backing on Dana.

 

Dana Carvey:   Yes and when I was doing a variety show in ’96 or ’97 with Louis CK and Carell and Colbert we had Tony Randall on he must have been in his ‘80s then, he looked incredible and I go what’s your secret, he goes well I just – he was just like a little kid. He was like well we get to do this, we’re doing this, we get to play and we get paid to do it. And I mean that’s always my touch down. I was a waiter was my last job, I was a dishwasher then a bus boy, we called ourselves table maintenance personnel managers but that’s another story. But I always thought wow if I make what I make as a waiter doing this, I say stay humble and just try to be great, try to be really, really good. And realize it’s the business side and all that stuff is just this whole other track that it can get people kind of crazy taking it too seriously and get it, you know, I saw – I met a lot of people that kind of bicker for no real reason. You know, go to Rwanda for a month just to kind of hang out and then come back. I mean even Letterman said he realized there was a lot going on besides his own TV show. It’s a myopic kind of narcissistic business. Let me tell you something this show, this show’s for everybody. Complete disaster, did I say disaster? I love disasters. This show is so good let me tell you something.

 

Q) I don’t think we’ve really talked about the guests that are going to be on there, like special guests. And one particular I wanted to talk about is your old friend Kevin Nealon, you guys go way back.

 

Dana Carvey:  Yes when Kevin Nealon, we were living in a house in Hollywood Hills, my wife and I lived above the garage. We were trying to save money to buy a home.  And she was speech writer and Kevin was across the way. So I knew Kevin before SNL and then by freak long story short circumstances I got on the show and they needed one more cast member. And then Lorne I think off hand said, you know, someone like Chevy, who’s 6 foot 4. So I said I know a tall funny guy so Kevin they flew him out and he landed the show just standing in 8H doing some standup.:  Now we’re – the new world of show business because of all the places to do stuff is mind boggling but we’re bringing out a Hans and Franz cartoon that we’ve got a whole pilot written just to put on whether, Amazon or Netflix or YouTube. It’s just a fun interesting time to do little all cart pieces of work. It’s really when I came through it was the two gate keepers in my business in essence were Johnny Carson and Lorne Michaels, they were two ways to get in.

 

Q) So in identifying what makes for a good impression there’s a sounding a like the person, there’s identifying the subtle mannerisms and working those in. and sometimes it seems like it’s dropping the person into a foreign situation. And I was wondering am I missing anything that’s sort of in the ingredients of a great impression and is any one of those more important than anything else?

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  Dana I’ll let you answer the last part of that. But the beginning I honestly think there’s one other thing because – and I didn’t notice it until Dana had said it on the show in one of the episodes. A lot of times when this voice comes out your face begins to take the form of the person you’re doing. And so there’s even a look – there’s even a look that’s involved as well. Like when Dana does Trump, his face naturally begins to like mold like Clayface from the old Batman animated series. It just like transforms into this squished version of Donald Trump, man. So that’s another part of it too. So much so that Dana even spoke about it in one of the episodes. Because one of the guy’s faces – or it was a girl doing Owen Wilson and her face literally became Owen Wilson’s face, it was the craziest thing.

 

Dana Carvey:  Yes it funny that you do hold your jaw and your mouth in a way that helps the sound. And I never personally practice in front of a mirror but I would see it later. But yes you can’t do Trump without sort of making your mouth into that – whatever that, it’s like a little trumpet. That’s why he’s called Trump.

 

Freddie Prinze Jr:  There you go, I always thought it was the bitter beer face, but you’re right it’s a trumpet face.

 

Dana Carvey:   I don’t know I guess we better get used to it. I don’t know, it’s going to be interesting. I don’t know if there’s anything we’re really missing, I would just say that sometimes you add stuff onto an impression, it just sort of feels right. It feels like it’s coming from them somehow. Even if they maybe never said that or even did that. In other words sort of an instinctual thing and for me I don’t know if it’s out of boredom or whatever eventually, I don’t really care. Like now I just have a Trump impression that I enjoy doing so I’m not studying or looking at anyone else’s Trump trying to be their – I just do my own. Because as soon as I get it locked in to it I’ll just treat it like a character, you know, so. I don’t know it’s all Trump all the time and Bernie, I’ve got a good Bernie too but he’ll still be around, right? He’s not going down is he?

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS premieres this Tuesday, 5/10 at 10:30/9:30c PM on USA Network and fans can catch-up on all of Dana Carvey’s greatest hits from Wayne’s World to SNL as well as highlights from FIRST IMPRESSIONS on NBCU’s new digital subscription comedy service, Seeso. 

*CONFERENCE CALL*